Genius Bar -- I like Apple!

Earlier this year, I bought an Apple iPod touch and am still amazed with what I can do with it. The five iPod touch applications Apple released in January made the toy more powerful. On Saturday, the home button stopped working. I would select the Safari icon and do some surfing and hit the home button expecting it to return to the home screen but nothing happened. It would stubbornly stay on the safari screen. The only way to return to the home screen was to turn it off and then on. I checked the discussion groups on the Apple site and didn’t find any hints as what to do. I had two choice drive to Montreal (2 hours) or head down to Toronto (5 hours). I signed up for a 3:00 pm appointment at the Genius bar on Monday in Laval, Quebec. The web interface for the Genius bar is fun to use. I headed to Montreal on Monday morning and took the subway north and tried to follow the directions on the Apple retail store web page but made an attempt to speak in broken French to the subway conductor who said to keep heading north. I jumped on the subway again and headed underneath the St. Lawrence River and took the subway/metro to the last stop on the line known as Montmorency. I was now in a different city with a different bus system and rules. There were a couple of buses that would take you to La Carrefour shopping center. I caught the first bus apparently destined for the mall and ended in north Laval miles from anywhere. After talking to the driver in broken French he suggested an express bus and I headed back to the bus hub. The second bus took me to the shopping center.

The Apple store was a hive of activity with a lot of people receiving 1-on-1 Apple training. I spoke to one of the “blue” shirts girls would confirmed that my appointment was still good. In the meantime, I explored the fun on display and imagined what it would be like to use a Macbook. It was sort of like being in a toy store for adult with all this neat gear. A little while later I met with the genius “black” shirt and we tried to do an iPod restore which didn’t work. The iPod was sicker than we thought. Apple replaced the iPod touch as it was still on warranty (Thanks Apple). It was a fun experience and my first visit to an Apple store and hopefully not my last as it was a fun place.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

On Friday, at the stroke of midnight I and a lot of other Harry Potter fans will have there chance to read the final Harry Potter book, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” Once again, I’ll stay up until midnight and go to the bookstore and watch the clock move ever close to the magic hour. The bookstore has WiFi so I can surf and try to score a couple of more babble points while waiting for the book to become available. At that point, I will constrain myself to read only a couple of pages per sitting as I fear that if I don’t, the book will be read over the course of the weekend. There are already leaked copies of the book available for viewing on the web. Did I take a look? Yes, I only looked at the table of contents which doesn’t reveal much. I’m comfortable waiting to until Friday midnight to experience the final book as what is a couple of extra days after waiting a couple of years.

Childhood heroes...

It is said that kids need heroes and mentors when they are growing up. JL had a recent entry where he talked about one of his childhood heroes. When I was growing up, one of my heroes was Jacques Cousteau, the oceanographer and scientist. I read every book he wrote and watched every movie he made. When he was doing some diving in Lake Ontario I was able to talk to him by ship-to-shore phone. One regret I have is that I didn't get a chance to meet him before he died.

Science Fair 2

In one of my earlier entries I talked about how one of my science fair projects dealt with volcanoes. In this entry I'll talk about my science fair project dealing with lasers. When I was growing up my father did a lot of work using lasers. My science fair projects explained how a laser work and about the speed of light. The speed of light came in as there is a mirror on the moon that you can shine your laser on and it will bounce back to earth. We calculated the distance from my parent's house to the moon and how many seconds it would take for a laser beam to be reflected off the mirror. When it came time to demonstrate my science fair, I explained how a laser works and the speed of light and my father I was able to get a low powered laser that I could use provide an live example. I remember getting a good mark on the project and being happy with what I had done. In a upcoming blog I'll talk about one of my childhood heroes.

Youtube and guitar 2

In some of my earlier entries I have talked about how I played the classical guitar when I was younger. While surfing youtube, I discovered a orcheastra that is composed of mainly guitar players. The church where the recording was made adds a certain warmth to the music that you don't hear when you download the master off the orcheastra's web site. I've downloaded a couple of there MP3s and put them onto my Ipod. The initial recording that caught my attention was:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-p6HHq5g3Y

Science fair 1...

When we moved out to the country as I was growing up, the first school I attended was a one room schoolhouse that had an extension on one side. In a previous entry, I talked about how I took the family tractor to school. In this entry I'll tell you about one of my science fair projects. It was a team science fair projects. The three of us were really interested in volcanoes and so we built a volcano out of paper mache. It looked very authentic. No science fair project is complete without a demonstration. My father had a chemist he knew make up a mixture that would simulate what occurs during an eruption. The day of the volcano demonstration came and we took our model outside and prepared for the eruption. The teacher had all our classmates line up and look out the window as if anything went wrong three students were more expendable than the whole class. We put on our safety glasses and I poured in the first chemical mixture while my friend poured in the second. The chemical reaction was time delayed so that we were a little distance away before it started to eruption. We waited and waited and then it erupted and we all sighed a relief. In a future entry, I'll tell you about my other science fair project that involved lasers and the moon.